By the time Quan went into decline yes. Zhao still had to put with a lot of crazy and insults

“You, are a rebellious son who abandoned his father. You are a cruel brigand who murdered his lord. How can Heaven and Earth put up with you for long? And unless you die soon, how can you face the sight of men?”

I think he was more resilient than loyal. He was old, with little else to go, seeing as he lived his whole life serving the Sun family.I feel sorry for him though. After all those years of service, if he could have just died peacefully, I think he'd be happy.

"Immense power is fun! You should try it sometime." -Syndra (favourite quote XD)

Had Zhang Zhao wanted, he could have walked into a luxurious retirement or a big job in any other kingdom. I think there were a number of factors behind his staying including loyalty.

“You, are a rebellious son who abandoned his father. You are a cruel brigand who murdered his lord. How can Heaven and Earth put up with you for long? And unless you die soon, how can you face the sight of men?”

Some good names appear in this thread, somehow I get the notion that the General's with the shortest careers tended to be known as loyal since they arent around long enough to get sudden ideas about changing sides.

Indeed someone like He-Man with barely two paragraphs about him in the 3k novel could have been amazingly loyal to his master but he got taken down fast before he had a chance to rebel or switch sides.

danuracula wrote:Zhou Yu. He has the power but refuse to take the throne offered by Sun Ce in his dying day.

What source is that from?

“You, are a rebellious son who abandoned his father. You are a cruel brigand who murdered his lord. How can Heaven and Earth put up with you for long? And unless you die soon, how can you face the sight of men?”

danuracula wrote:Zhou Yu. He has the power but refuse to take the throne offered by Sun Ce in his dying day. And Zhou is the first man to give respect for the young-unexperienced-lord Sun Quan.

Zhou Yu showed a great deal of loyalty to the Sun clan but Prof Rafe suggests that Zhou Yu may have declared independence if his plan to take Yi had come to fruition:

The death of Young Gentleman Zhou was a major blow to SunQuan's position in Jing province. Victor at the Red Cliffs anddominant figure in the allied command, Zhou Yu had been able tomaintain an authority which balanced that of Liu Bei. One mightwonder, perhaps, as Liu Bei is said to have suggested to Sun Quan inprivate conversation, whether Zhou Yu would be prepared to serveindefinitely as the subordinate of another; and one may certainlysuspect that if Zhou Yu had established himself in Yi province hemight in future have dealt with Sun Quan as an equal rather than as asuzerain. But that was now in the realm of might-have-been, andwhen Sun Quan held full mourning for Zhou Yu he was right to doso. Zhou Yu had been a pillar of great strength to his state, and itwould be very hard to find a replacement for him. From his deathbed, Zhou Yu recommended

Interested in the history behind the novel? Find a list of english language Three Kingdom sources here.